NEWS
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NEWS IN BRIEF MONTEIRO PROTESTORS HOLD WALKOUT, RALLY Members of the coalition Students for Monteiro held a rally Wednesday, April 9, to demand the reinstatement of Anthony Monteiro, an adjunct African American studies professor whose contract is not being renewed. The group of about 30 protestors delivered speeches in front of the Bell Tower before marching to Sullivan Hall, which houses administrative offices. While the protesters gathered around the front door of Sullivan Hall, Temple police put up crowd control barriers on Beasley Walk, where there is a side door. After about a half hour of chanting, university administrators came outside to receive a petition from the protesters. Estimates for the number of signatories to the petition varied, with members of Students for Monteiro citing numbers between 500 and 900. After the administrators took the petition, People Utilizing Real Power member Paul-Winston Cange dismissed the crowd and announced a joint community-and-students protest on Wed. April 16 at 1 p.m. -Joe Brandt
TEMPLE LOSES FEDERAL LAWSUIT Temple lost a federal lawsuit concerning student loan information in late February. The case, titled Seamans v. Temple University, was originally decided in 2012 in federal district court but was appealed to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals and argued last September. The court decided that the Higher Education Act of 1965 doesn’t exempt a university that offers student loan information to a credit reporting agency from the reporting requirement of the federal privacy law, the Fair Credit Reporting Act. The court ruled that the case will be sent back to district court to decide on punitive damages the university may owe the plaintiff, Edward Seamans, as protected under the FCRA. -Marcus McCarthy
TUH DONATES TO COMMUNITY Temple University Hospital has started the first blood donation system in the city to use blood from umbilical cords and placentas. Expecting moms at TUH will be given the option to donate this blood for free with no danger to them or their babies. The blood will be stored at a site in New Jersey. Stem cells have been shown to effectively treat leukemia, lymphoma and could, in the future, help treat cancer, Parkinson’s disease, spinal cord injuries and other ailments. The program will be run by the hosptial’s Women and Infant’s Division in partnership with the Mason Shaffer Foundation and nonprofit Commuity Blood Services. -Marcus McCarthy Continued from page 1
WIND
near the outside of Morgan Hall – the landscaping and grassy area resides within the two towers as part of Morgan’s 30,000 square-foot terrace for the residents. “When you put landscaping in front of the building, you’re trying to sort of soften the building and make it blend into the landscape, but it doesn’t really work on a tower that tall,” Eck said. With the powerful winds surrounding these buildings, snowfall and ice can be blown around on roofs, as well as blown off the side of the buildings. During the winter, police cornered off certain areas to avoid blow-off onto Cecil B. Moore Avenue. Facilities employees also worked to manage the snow on top of buildings like Morgan Hall to avoid injuries. Standing in the courtyard between Morgan Hall north and south with the wind visibly blowing their shirts, junior Perry Bachstein and sophomore Ahmed Amer said they think the wind makes
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VOTE The tickets were officially announced at the weekly TSG General Assembly meeting on March 24. Debates between the two tickets were held on March 31 and April 7. TU Believe campaigned on expanding LGBTQ safe-zone training programs and the range of TUr Door services, as well as improving dining halls and building security. Renew TU’s platform centered on increasing lines of communication
TUESDAY, APRIL 15, 2014
Follow attacks, changes to security TSG, administrators say campus police will expand patrol zone, improve building security. JOSEPH GILBRIDE The Temple News New safety measures will be added to campus buildings next semester and security officers will have an expanded range and presence, according to plans in development in the administration. An internal proposal is calling for changes to Main Campus security beyond its current range, though some of the plans could not be discussed because they are still in the development stage, said student body president Darin Bartholomew. Representatives from Campus Safety Services recently held several forums with students in response to safety concerns after attacks on students near Main Campus. While decling to cite specifics, Acting Executive Director of Campus Safety Services Charlie Leone confirmed that CSS is working with TSG to determine an expanded patrol zone and improvements to building security. Many students voiced a desire for a larger, more visible police presence. Bartholomew said there will not be a radical change to campus safety, but rather a “reallocation of resources.” “We’re not talking about hiring hundreds of
police officers and putting them on every single block,” Bartholomew said. “We’re going to do what we’re legally able to do.” Bartholomew said he is most confident that Temple Police’s patrol zone will be expanded and the area made more simple to make it less confusing to students, landlords and businesses off Main Campus. The current patrol area extends from Susquehanna Avenue in the north to Jefferson Street in the south, and from 9th to 16th streets east to west. However, the area is not uniform and some streets within the stated boundaries are not covered. By state law, campus police are legally allowed but not required to patrol and respond to incidents within 500 feet of property owned or operated by the university. Temple Police’s current patrol zone does not extend the full distance allowed by the state. “Some students have asked: ‘What about [expanding to] 18th and 19th streets?’” Bartholomew said. “Seventeenth makes the most sense because that’s where the response zone ends. That’s the hard boundary.” Temple Police’s response zone, the area wherein it can operate if called for help, extends farther than its patrol zone, stretching from Dauphin Street to Master Street north to south and Eighth Street to 17th Street east to west. “My goal is the two boundaries should be the same,” Bartholomew said. “For a student wanting to rent a house off campus, if it’s in the zone, they should know they get all the services, and if it’s not, they know they don’t get any.”
Bartholomew said he has been advocating for a larger, simpler police patrol area since he came into office. “When the off-campus zones were created, the Temple area was very different,” Bartholomew said. Other safety proposals could involve revamping security inside Main Campus buildings. In a Temple Student Government election debate on March 31, Student Body Presidentelect Ray Smeriglio floated a proposal to the crowd that Temple could consider moving to a tap- or swipe-only system for using student IDs to get into buildings. However, Smeriglio said after an interview with campus safety officials that the suggestion was not discussed further. Bartholomew said he would “never advocate to go for IDing for all buildings. This is not a massive police state increase. We would maybe redesign entrances.” He said security changes would go further than the security improvements already implemented on Main Campus, which added guards to Anderson Hall and the Student Center. Smeriglio said his discussion with TUPD and CSS have centered on social media and transparency, after students raised complaints that incidents were going unreported by police. “We’re working on how TSG social media can get information out to students,” Smeriglio said. “Everyone is looking to how to make TSG and police more transparent.” Joe Gilbride can be reached at joseph.gilbride@temple.edu.
Markers in Alzheimer’s focus of research Researchs look at subjects’ blood to find risk of developing Alzheimer’s in later life. LOGAN BECK The Temple News A comprehensive study conducted by a team of researchers at Temple, the University of Rochester and Georgetown University may hold the key to detecting the earliest signs of Alzheimer’s disease – a simple blood test. Susan Fisher, chair of the Department of Clinical Science at the School of Medicine, said typical Alzheimer’s patients progress from having normal brain function to mild cognitive impairment, before developing and fulfilling all of the criteria for having Alzheimer’s. The ultimate goal of the study was to predict the development of Alzheimer’s before the patient displayed any symptoms. The research team recruited a group of 525 adults aged 75 and over who had no diagnosis of a neurologic disease and who were not on any medications that would have side effects that would affect their cognition. The subjects were enrolled in the study over a course of two years, in Rochester, N.Y., California, and Washington. “The goal of this study was to identify markers, lipid markers, from the blood that would predict or might show patients who are at the greatest risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease,” Fisher
said. While enrolled, subjects had a sample of blood draw and completed a “full battery” of neuropsychological tests that evaluated the patients’ memory, attention and executive functions. A series of language and visual tests were given also. “So we did all this testing and we had this tube of blood,” Fisher said. “In the laboratory they examined this blood for a metabolic profile, a medical footprint of cells that might separate those who eventually develop Alzheimer’s disease to those who didn’t.” The patients that participated in the study were followed for three years and studied once a year. At the end of three years, the research team found 46 people who would have been categorized as MCI, but did not display symptoms of Alzheimer’s. Twenty-eight patients were found to have normal psychological functioning. Three years later, all 74 of the patients were tested and found to have Alzheimer’s. The team looked at the blood of these individuals by examining a small subset for different kinds of markers. They found 10 lipids of fat that seem to be very different in people developing Alzheimer’s versus everyone else. “We knew that once people had converted, you could go back and look at the initial blood test and see that the blood showed different characteristics than those that did not,” Fisher said. That being said, ideally the team wants to be able to identify the 10 markers in the first group, take another test group with a small set of people who had progressed to Alzheimer’s, as well as a
group that did not and examine their blood for the same 10 markers. These 10 markers separate the two groups of people at 90 percent or greater accuracy. According to the Susan G. Komen website, mammograms are typically only 78 percent accurate in detecting an abnormal breast lump in women ages 50 and older. “90 percent is pretty darn good,” Fisher said. Currently, there is no cure for Alzheimer’s disease. There are many treatments and suggested drugs for treating Alzheimer’s, but according to Fisher “none are particularly useful” because they have not halted the progression of the disease after diagnosis. These drugs, however, are thought to perhaps be helpful in preventing the onset of Alzheimer’s if they are administered early. The testing that took place in the study allowed researchers to screen people who look like they may develop Alzheimer’s in the immediate future, and determine where they could get prevention treatment. Although the initial study has been completed, there is still a bit of work to be done to find more about this breakthrough. “I have to say, although we have a big sample size, we still only had a small sample of people within three years that developed Alzheimer’s disease,” Fisher said. “While these results are positive, they need to be tested more within a more diverse group of people.”
Logan Beck can be reached at logan.beck@temple.edu.
walking to class even worse when the weather is bad. “When it’s cold, it makes it 10 times colder,” Amir said. “If someone is walking next to you can’t talk, you have to yell.” “I’ve gotten very close to wearing a scarf one day, but I luckily haven’t crossed that line,” Bachstein said. Freshman Gabrielle Flanagan said the wind tunnels are so bad, it sometimes makes her unbalanced. “I’m not a huge fan of it,” Flanagan said. In an extreme case, the wind tunnel effect was reported to have been the cause of 25 incidents and injuries including internal bleeding, as well as one death in Europe, according to the BBC. The extremely strong winds surrounding Bridgewater Place in Leeds, England crushed the victim in 2011. These winds also caused a buggy to be blown over, containing a three-month-old infant. Logan Beck can be reached at logan.beck@temple.edu.
about services already offered by the university and the creation of a Diversity Week. A total of 1,716 votes were cast, according to a tally by TSG election commissioners. It was lower than the total from last year’s election, which counted 2,075 votes, which in turn was lower than the previous year’s 2,647 votes. TSG Election Commissioner Dylan Morpurgo said the drop in voter turnout meant TSG didn’t communicate as effectively as it could have to students. “Voter turnout can always be higher,” Morpurgo said. “Because campus is so busy and diverse, people are not always connected to what’s
Taller buildings on campus create wind tunnels that rip through the streets below. Students say the effect causes discomfort and colder temperatures.| SKYLER BURKHART TTN going on.” Outgoing president Darin Bartholomew cited the weather as a factor in low voter turnout, saying the groups were not able to have heavy campaigning due to the large number of rainy days in late March and early April. Morpurgo said the number of votes cast was not an all-time low turnout for TSG elections. In other ways, Morpurgo said the election was an improvement. “Both teams made a really concerted effort to run a clean campaign,” he said. “The debates were very cordial. That wasn’t always the case in the past.” Crusor said TU Believe has “big shoes to
fill,” as they prepare to lead the student body in the fall. TSG holds weekly meetings that bring in university administrators to hear from students, and leaders frequently meet with top administrators to relay thoughts and concerns from the student body. The student body president also holds a non-voting seat on the Board of Trustees. Smeriglio will assume office at the inauguration on May 5 at the general assembly meeting. Joseph Gilbride and John Moritz can be reached at news@temple-news.com.